The body was discovered by firefighters around 1 a.m. Thursday while they were extinguishing the car fire in an alley near the 1800 block of Greenwood Avenue in the California neighborhood.

Detectives said the car was found in the yard behind a home.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

"That's just a shock to me because for somebody to do something like that, that's just crazy," said neighbor Chauncey Deal.

Police said they’re not sure how the woman died.

“Louisville Metro Police homicide unit and Louisville fire will conduct a joint investigation at this time. Obviously we will know more once an autopsy is done,” said LMPD spokesman Dwight Mitchell.

WLKY spoke to a few neighbors at the scene who saw the flames from the car but were shocked to find out that a body was found inside. They said they were too concerned about their safety to go on camera to talk about what they saw.

Police said the car was a light blue, older model Ford Taurus, but would not say who the car was registered to or if that person lives in the neighborhood.

“To be honest, I've never seen the car before in my life, for real,” said neighbor Carl Smith.

“I know that car was not there yesterday in the daytime. I do know that because I was in and out the back door and it wasn’t out there, so evidently somebody had to bring the car there,” said neighbor Joann Smith.

Police said preliminary reports indicated the woman died from multiple injuries sustained from an assault and not a result of the fire. No arrests have been made.

"What is going through a human being's mind to do that to another human being? Who has a family, who had people to care about them, and it's just crazy," said Deal.

The yard is accessible to anyone by an alley and those living in the home told WLKY they knew nothing about the fire.

Investigators from Metro's arson and homicide units spent the day going door to door talking to neighbors.

“It's suspicious, obviously, but it's still too early to draw any conclusions as to what occurred and what occurred where. We really don’t know that,” said Maj. Henry Ott.

The coroner's office will likely release the identity of the victim sometime Friday, but it could be weeks before the official cause of death is released.

Police currently have no suspects in the case.

Anyone with information should call the anonymous police tip line at 502-574-LMPD.

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